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SSS10 Proceedings of the 10th
International Space Syntax Symposium
C Ugalde, C Fujita, C
Bauermann & G Jobim
Identifying city-‐regional structures
in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil
86:1
086Identifying city-‐regional structures in
Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil
Claudio Mainieri de Ugalde Pontifícia
Universidade Católica do Rio Grande
do Sul – PUC/RS, Fundação
Estadual de Planejamento Metropolitano
e Regional – METROPLAN
[email protected] Camila Fujita
PUCRS / Pontifícia Universidade
Católica do Rio Grande do Sul
[email protected] Carlos Norberto
Bauermann Fundação Estadual de
Planejamento Metropolitano e Regional
– METROPLAN [email protected]
Gilda Maria Franco Jobim
Fundação Estadual de Planejamento
Metropolitano e Regional – METROPLAN
[email protected]
Abstract
Presently, the idea that a
region can be defined and
delimited as part of a territory
with similar characteristics which
are, in some degree, different
from other places, is being
reviewed. Literature shows attempts
of contemporary territory descriptions
as consequence of complex, diffuse
and contradictory realities of a
globalized society, what suggests the
necessity of discussing new concepts
of region.
In the 70’s, nine metropolitan
regions were delimited and
institutionalized in Brazil, based
mainly on criteria of population,
conurbation, commuting and industrial
activity. Ever since then, the
number of metropolitan regions has
increased up to more then
forty, which were delimited based in
different and subjective criteria,
with negative consequences for public
urban policy making and governance.
The conurbation criterion is
considered a fundamental one for
the identification of a metropolitan
region. However, is it possible
to find relevant global
structures in non conurbated
city-‐regional systems?
An exploratory study is proposed
for the Metropolitan Region of
Serra Gaúcha, recently institutionalized
in the State of Rio Grande
do Sul, Brazil, where political
reasons overcame technical delimitation
criteria. The ongoing research
uses geo-‐referenced data of different
land uses, in thirteen
municipalities, to be correlated to
syntactic measures in order to
find out patterns of land use
and occupation representative of
a contemporary territoriality in the
southern part of the country.
The present paper is a
preliminary approach, restricted to
four municipalities, towards the
comprehension about spatial relations
within agglomerated cities which
are not in a conurbation stage.
Space syntax was taken as an
appropriate theory and methodology
for the investigation because it
allowed to disaggregate space,
from demographic census sectors
(surfaces), into units (axial segments)
to which data can be
linked, supporting a much more
accurate analysis. Municipalities were
analyzed separately evidencing individual
structures, and as a whole,
where global accessibility and
centrality revealed the city region
structure and the degree of
autonomy of the parts.
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SSS10 Proceedings of the 10th
International Space Syntax Symposium
C Ugalde, C Fujita, C
Bauermann & G Jobim
Identifying city-‐regional structures
in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil
86:2
The preliminary results showed
interdependences between some land use
locations and space properties
and attributes in the municipal
scale. However, in the regional
scale, areas along some important
accessible spaces were not
intensively occupied yet, suggesting
functional independence among cities.
The study case pointed new
targets for the ongoing research,
towards a new data set
and the knowledge of routes
adopted by suppliers, customers,
partners and the distribution logistics
for industrial and commercial
enterprises. This way, space
properties and characteristics can
be better correlated with eventual
new and different relations among
cities not necessarily conurbated.
Keywords
Urban and regional planning,
configurative analysis, space syntax.
1. Introduction
The phenomenon of metropolization, which
emerged in Europe during the
19th century and in the 1920s
in Brazil, requires a new
perspective in urban and regional
planning. Cities that used to
be entirely contained within their
municipalities started to constitute
great agglomerations that surpass
their political and administrative
boundaries.
While in the United States
and in European countries the
metropolitan issue has been officially
addressed from the 1950s, in
Brazil, the Metropolitan Regions were
instituted in 1973, reflecting an
urban development national policy
that was considering the expansion
of multinational companies, whose
process had their natural and
necessary locus at the metropolis.
The federated states did not
have any autonomy for intervening
in the decisions taken in
federal level regarding programs or
projects previewed for the
metropolitan territory; this bestowed
on the process a high
degree of centralism and
authoritarianism. The fact that the
nine Metropolitan Regions instituted
by the Complementary Law 14/73
match exclusively the state capitals
can reinforce the idea that, in
some cases, the political interests
prevailed over the metropolitan issue
(Moura and Firkowski, 2001).
Since that time, therefore, there
has been a dissonance between
spatiality and institutionality that
has increased during the last
two decades, even within a more
democratic and decentralized political
context. The conflict persists not
only due to the institutionalization
of new units but also due
to the increase of the
existing ones, with the inclusion
of new municipalities without the
support of any technical criteria,
which results in four possible
relationships between spatiality and
institutionality:
a) The formal boundary of the
Metropolitan Region is smaller
than the spatiality of the
phenomenon
b) The formal boundary of the
Metropolitan Region is greater
than the spatiality of the
phenomenon
c) The Metropolitan Region is instituted
without a spatiality of metropolitan
features
d) The existence of a spatiality
of metropolitan features and the
inexistence of its respective
institutionality.
Distortions continued to occur to
the point that, until the year
2010, 46 Metropolitan Regions had
been instituted in the country,
many of them with precarious
technical sustenance concerning the
effective dependency relationships between
the municipalities that composed them
or the effective need for
management of "common interest public
positions", according to 1988's
Brazilian Federal Constitution.
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SSS10 Proceedings of the 10th
International Space Syntax Symposium
C Ugalde, C Fujita, C
Bauermann & G Jobim
Identifying city-‐regional structures
in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil
86:3
If, on the one hand, in the
1970s, the technical criteria adopted
for the delimitation of metropolitan
areas corresponded basically to
continuity of the territory occupation,
commuting and economic active
population working on industrial
activities, on the other hand,
the social and economic transformations
that took place worldwide in
the last decades, with reverberations
in how territory was structured,
attempt to review such criteria
and restructure the productive
process and the relationships between
production and consumption of
products and services. Consequently,
people and merchandise flows need
to be described, as well as
the accessibility patterns that come
from the changes in how the
territory is occupied.
Considering the statements above,
the recently instituted Metropolitan
Region of Serra Gaúcha – RMSG
suggests an investigation, since it
constitutes a territory where the
conurbation process has not been
consolidated yet. However, a more
fragmented occupation of the areas
located between cities may be
producing a spatial hierarchy where
not only high movement roadways
can be found, but also
intra-‐urban ways and vicinal roads.
The analysis of the relations
between circuits of production,
consumption, innovation and spatial
units will provide the necessary
basis for the intended discussion
by verifying the possible correlations
that exist between kinds of
activities or company categories
and spatial variables.
The goals of the research are:
a) To identify the global
spatial structure of Região Metropolitana
da Serra Gaúcha – RMSG from
the emergence of patterns of
accessibility, centrality, and
distribution of uses and activities
b) To verify each municipality's
degree of dependence upon
spatial structures in relation to
RMSG's global structure
c) To verify up to what
degree RMSG's road accessibility
conditions different movement scales
and the spatial distribution of
uses and activities
d) To analyze the possibilities
of municipalities' urban expansion
regarding natural conditions,
particularly topography
e) To identify parameters that
could be adopted for defining
regional boundaries based on spatial
analysis
f) To identify repercussions of
the (post-‐Fordism) globalization
process in RMSG's territory.
The hypothesis considered here is
that, although the Northeast
Urban Agglomeration's spatial structure
has not been technically considered
a Metropolitan Region due to
social, economic, physical and
territorial criteria formulated in
the past, it shows a degree
of dependence of its parts
regarding the whole and reveals
contemporary socioeconomic relations.
The intense formation of isolated
nuclei between municipalities suggests
the hypothesis that not only
highways, but also sideways that
connect municipalities develop an
important role in spatial structure.
The present paper aims at bringing
to discussion the theoretical and
methodological outline of this
ongoing research1, as well as
the preliminary results of a
spatial analysis made for four
of the thirteen municipalities in
RMSG (Figure 01).
1 The
Research Project was approved and
is supported by Fundação de
Amparo à Pesquisa do Rio
Grande do Sul – FAPERGS and
Pontifícia Universidade Católica do
Rio Grande do Sul – PUC/RS
in collaboration with Fundação
Estadual de Planejamento Metropolitano
e Regional – METROPLAN.
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SSS10 Proceedings of the 10th
International Space Syntax Symposium
C Ugalde, C Fujita, C
Bauermann & G Jobim
Identifying city-‐regional structures
in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil
86:4
Figure 01: Metropolitan Region
of Serra Gaúcha composed by
thirteen municipalities. Four of them
were selected for the study
case of the present paper.
Source: METROPLAN
Space syntax, together with
Geographic Information Systems, introduces
new and important possibilities
for refining the analysis of urban
systems, since it offers the
possibility of fragmenting space in
smaller units (segmented axial lines)
confronting spatial variables with
many others, such as population,
land use, densities, consumption,
income, etc. This represents an
innovation in spatial analysis
techniques, in Brazil, towards public
policies and governance.
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SSS10 Proceedings of the 10th
International Space Syntax Symposium
C Ugalde, C Fujita, C
Bauermann & G Jobim
Identifying city-‐regional structures
in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil
86:5
2. Basic characteristics of metropolitan
areas within globalized economy in
Brazilian context
Ascher (Delgado, 2010) states that,
in a first stage of the
metropolization process, during the
post-‐war period, the city-‐region
was characterized by a traditional
nucleus of population and activities'
concentration and by a first
ring of satellite cities, still
in process of densification. Composed
mainly by individual residences and
some commerce associated to service
rendering, a second ring would
develop discontinuously throughout the
expansion axes. Farther from
these rings, and in predominantly
rural areas, more rarefied nucleations
of what he called "metropolitan
metastasis" (p.15) were formed. The
fusion of these cities-‐region,
originating a greater, more
discontinuous and complex structure
was named 'metapolis' by the
author. The metapolis is described
as the model of post-‐industrial
city that covers diversified,
fragmented spaces, and heterogeneous,
dense or diffuse zones with
different growth dynamics (Figure
02).
Figure 02: Typologies evolution of
western cities. Source: Delgado, 2010
p.3.
Rochefort (2002) highlights that the
effects of economy globalization in
cities are noticed not only in
the functional sphere, but also
in the inner organization of
new metropolitan spaces. According to
him, new communication and
information techniques propitiate that
the implantations be more distant
from activity centers and residential
urbanization zones. Tertiary companies
do not require the same
imperative locations of the factories
during the industrial period;
inhabitants have greater mobility due
to transportation facilities and the
increasing use of automobiles.
The corporations in a globalized
economy define centers somewhere in
the globe, but these, on their
turn, do not require a
physical concentration of activities in
one single place anymore. They
are located in wider territories,
where diversified spatial units are
interconnected by networks and flows.
In Brazil, a production
restructuring process, coming from the
spreading of new microelectronic-‐based
production technologies, started in
the 1980s. This process
corresponded to the transition from
a technological standard based
on the centralization of commands
and production massification to a
technological standard defined by
flexibility, diversity and
decentralization (Fochezatto, 2010). Therefore,
the altered production procedures
fostered strategic alliances between
companies and institutions, expanding
their internal and external
interdependencies. They also motivated
an increase in the range of
productive segments and a reduction
in the average size of the
companies. The author emphasizes that
the new technologies, together with
improvements in energy and
transportation infrastructures, have increased
the spatial mobility of the
productive
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SSS10 Proceedings of the 10th
International Space Syntax Symposium
C Ugalde, C Fujita, C
Bauermann & G Jobim
Identifying city-‐regional structures
in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil
86:6
capital, which is guided by more
attractive location factors, propitiating
a spatial deconcentration of economic
activities. The trade openness with
other countries has also made
that regional economies could obtain
new demands in the international
market and diversify their
production.
Soares (2010) records the reflection
of that reality in Rio Grande
do Sul by verifying a
restructuring process of the RMPA
simultaneously with the formation
of new agglomerations. Urban
agglomerations in Rio Grande do
Sul are industrialized spaces
where important local production systems
and manufacturing workforce are
located; these attributes work as
factors that attract new industrial
implantations. It should be
noticed that, besides these
concentrations, a diffuse industrialization
between the metropolitan region
and the urban agglomerations can
be found. There, the manufacturing
units spread together with the
small urban nuclei, with
production systems that are flexible
and intensive in labor force.
"This industrialization is connected
also to local production systems,
particularly footwear and agro-‐industrial
economy. We consider that, in
the current stage of
metropolization in Rio Grande do
Sul, the metropolitan region of
Porto Alegre is going through
significant transformations that impact
on surrounding urban-‐industrial
agglomerations as well. Therefore,
the urban agglomerations of Caxias
do Sul, Lajeado-‐Estrela, and Santa
Cruz do Sul also present
important changes in their
social-‐spatial structure. The expansion
of the metropolitan area and
of general conditions of
production allows that the
manufacturing units deconcentrate throughout
metropolitan surroundings, while
communication and information infrastructures
permit that management activities be
reinforced within the space of
the metropolis. The city-‐region of
Porto Alegre is still a
virtuality; however, it constitutes
an ongoing process in which we
consider that the industrial capital
shares its prominent role with
the services sector" (Soares, 2010,
p.14).
Based on recent literature, the
brief description above of the
spatiality of the phenomenon of
a more extensive occupation of
the territory, which also occurs
in Rio Grande do Sul,
suggests a deeper investigation to
support regionalization policies more
adequate to current reality.
Therefore, the emergence of a new
territory brings interest due to
its description. The study carried
out by TUDelft researches (Wandl
et al, 2012) regarding the
territories located between urban
and rural areas
(Territories-‐in-‐Between) that become
intermediate landscapes between both
environments contributes with theory
and methodology for the development
of this present project. In
these territories, new functions, uses
and lifestyles arise as a
result of the interaction between
urban and rural elements. These
cannot be explained as an
intensification of the urban functions
because they have specific spatial
and programmatic features. According
to the authors, terms and
concepts like "suburbanization",
"urban-‐rural relations", "sprawl" or
"peri-‐urban" do not reflect the
diversity and complexity of these
territories. The key hypothesis
formulated by the Dutch researchers
is that the network features
of the "territories-‐in-‐between"
(TiB), in terms of active flows,
influence their development and
performance. They highlight that
planners, designers and managers often
do not have enough perception
or discrimination about the reality
of areas that not perfectly fit
conventional categories.
Bringing these issues into a
Brazilian case could represent both
an advance for the acknowledgment
and description of such
territories and an important
contribution for the formulation of
public policies.
3. Importance and possibilities of
regional delineations of territory
and its governance
Abrantes (2007) notices a political
intention towards the framing
and consequent delimitation of
metropolitan regions, since they
are extremely important territories in
the spatial and socioeconomic
organization of Europe nowadays, and
they contribute significantly for
competitiveness and social cohesion
strategies. It is widely known
that most of the population and
added-‐value activities are located
in these territories. Abrantes
considers that the delimitation of
areas undergoing metropolization
processes functions mainly for
territorial ordainment purposes, and the
search for proper delimitation
methodologies propitiates cohesive territories
from the physical, economic and
social point of view; thus the
need of linking the regionalization
as a fact to
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SSS10 Proceedings of the 10th
International Space Syntax Symposium
C Ugalde, C Fujita, C
Bauermann & G Jobim
Identifying city-‐regional structures
in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil
86:7
the regionalization as a tool.
The rupture between both actions
generates difficulties both for the
identification and interpretation of
phenomena and for the planning
and management of urban
agglomerations.
Since 1966, IBGE (Brazilian
Institute of Geography and Statistics)
conducts researches to identify
relations between Brazilian cities
and what it called Regions
of Influence of the Cities
(REGIC). According to IPARDES
(2009), the importance of the
results of these studies lies
in the fact that the
organization of the urban network,
its centralities, and the influential
areas of the centers are
crucial for state planning and
decision-‐making concerning the
allocation of investments on production
economic activities, private and
collective consumption, and the
implantation of services in territorial
basis. They are equally important
to provide tools that develop
knowledge about current social
relationships and spatial patterns
that arise from them, providing
references for assessing how the
population can have access to
services. All the researches
were organized based on the
definition of a list of
goods and services that – once
measured the volume and the
origin of the demand –
indicated the differences between
central locations and offered
conditions so that the centers'
hierarchical scale could be
established. These studies were
developed beginning with questionnaires
that investigated consumer flows
searching for goods and services.
The new hierarchy of urban
centers, as well as the
delimitation of the influential
regions associated to each one
of them, was completed by a
broad set of secondary data.
According to IBGE (2008, p.8),
"the introduction of new technologies
and changes in technical networks,
the deepening of globalization in
Brazilian economy, and the advance
of the occupation border imprinted
remarkable changes in territory,
indicating the opportunity for updating
the framework of cities' regions
of influence." These changes,
together with the advance of
technical and territorial division of
labor, have stimulated the
organization in networks -‐ production
and distribution, service rendering,
political and economic management -‐
whose nodes are conformed by
cities. IBGE's researchers indicate
the presence of two kinds of
urban systems side by side:
the system of central localities,
with regions formed around the
centers; and the reticular
system, in which the city works
as a node of a worldwide
network.
Viana (2008) calls the attention
for the fact that choices
about analysis categories aiming
regional delimitations are choices about
world visions and about a
specific political and intellectual
practice, in a certain historical
period. The region category had
changes in its content along
sciences history trying to keep
up with the transformations of
the world reality. According to
the author, with the advent
of global relations among places,
the concept of region, initially
linked to a group of
continuous and homogeneous places,
started to incorporate a more
relational sense with diversity,
inequality, and complementarity. She
argues that globalization makes,
unmake and remake spatial
differences. Different uses, fluxes
and networks that unify places,
make them particular or not
particular. Therefore, region starts
to be a more complex cut
on the therritorial dynamics and
requires a permanent revision of
its concept faced to the new
vectors of modernization and to
he new possibilities of the
territory use (Souza, 1995).
Paiva et al (2010) criticizes
regionalization criteria adopted in the
State of Rio Grande do
Sul. According to the author,
there is a large number of
theoretical and practical studies
about regionalization alternatives
according to climate, topographic,
political and administrative aspects,
etc. He argues that scientific
processes of regionalization, based
on statistical indicators and
tests, requires new forms of
measurement, giving the example of
the false means related to
modifiable areal unit problem (MAUP).
Ribeiro (2012) proposes a methodology
that evaluates the insertion nature
of each municipality into the
regional dynamics through statistical
analysis using population density,
economic, functional, urbanization degree,
jobs and mobility indicators. As
a result, cities were then
grouped according to levels of
integration to the dynamics of
the metropolization process. In
the case of Serra Gaúcha
Metropolitan Region, the municipalities
of Caxias do Sul and Bento
Gonçalves showed a high degree
of integration although not having
common borders.
Ramos and Silva (2003) proposes
a methodology for the
delimitation of a metropolitan area
expansion in the northeast of
Portugal, based on the social
and economic evolution of
Metropolitan Region of Porto,
observed between 1991 and 2001.
Techniques of Exploratory Spatial
Data Analyses
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SSS10 Proceedings of the 10th
International Space Syntax Symposium
C Ugalde, C Fujita, C
Bauermann & G Jobim
Identifying city-‐regional structures
in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil
86:8
– ESDA allow the identification
of specific local characteristics
that can be used in a
dynamic modeling of relevant
variables for the study region.
Using Moran Scatterplot (Anselin, 1996),
the researches delimited regions
from uniform zones regarding to
the analyzed variable.
Manzato and Silva (2007) shows
the conceptual structure of a
methodology for the definition of
homogeneous urban regions based
on combination of road infrastructure
and population supply using two
techniques of spatial analysis:
spatial statistics and spatial
modeling. The proposal is presented
through different spatial models
which together try to evaluate
interrelations between land use
and transportation provision. The
methodology is based on the
combination of two indicators:
population density and road network,
which combined with Moran Index
and Cellular Automata.
4. Space syntax and the
identification of urban and regional
structures based on spatial
disaggregation
It can be noticed that the
possibilities of regional cut adopted
so far in Brazil take the
municipality or census sector as
spatial unities for the
expression of results. It is
necessary to link significant variables
to spatial unities deriving from
the effective territory occupation
so that the influence of the
built environment on accessibility
and movement, land use,
densities, locations, etc. can be
identified.
Space syntax provides important
theory and methodology necessary to
disaggregate generic surfaces or
parts of the territory into
axial lines, representative of public
spaces permeable to movement of
pedestrian and vehicles in
cities and regions (Hillier and
Hanson, 1984; Hillier et al,
1993; Hillier, 1996). Axial lines
capture local properties of
space, such as connectivity and
global ones, such as integration,
once it is inserted in a
spatial configuration. These axial
lines can be broken into
segments, to which any variable can
be linked and, consequently,
correlations can be tested between
syntactic measures and urban/regional
phenomena.
Rigatti and Ugalde (2007)
investigated, based on space syntax,
the structure of the metropolitan
conurbation. The first part of
the study was the individual
analysis of each municipality,
identifying common and different aspects
among them, including the role
of each one in the
Metropolitan Region of Porto Alegre.
Spatial typologies were identified
mostly in consequence of their
grid’s connections and less for
their internal characteristics. They
verified how it was possible,
during the conurbation process, the
maintenance of the identity,
particularities and autonomy of some
its parts and loss of these
characteristics in others. The
comparison was made based on the
syntactic measures of global
integration of each municipality with
the global integration of the
whole configuration, in different
topological radius. Conclusions indicated
that when conurbation is
effective, syntactical measures are
more robust than the ones
belonging to each city separately.
Cemasi and Psarra (2012) argue
that the way cities grow on
their peripheries reveals a caotic
pattern of occupation. In fact,
this vision is influenced by
the old urbanization and perception
models, that put these areas in
an appropriate focus of analysis.
According to the authors, the
necessity of a new approach is
reinforced by the presence of
new territorial identities in
Italy, which requires other models
that take in consideration new
landscapes representative of post
industrial urban situations. Supported
by space syntax and with
reference to Landscape Urbanism, they
examine the cities of Bologna
and Modena in different scales
and discuss the localization
evolution of commerce, service as
well as housing and the
emergence of new centralities.
Tavares (2013) studied the role
of the high speed transportation
network as an element that
structures urban centralities on
peripheries of traditional cities.
Based on space syntax to analyze
relations between movement and
activities in Taveiro and Coimbra
region, in Portugal. He found
out a functional decentralization
process along a highway that
links the two cities, where
diversified equipments of production,
consumption and distribution, configuring
a process called neoagglomerations.
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SSS10 Proceedings of the 10th
International Space Syntax Symposium
C Ugalde, C Fujita, C
Bauermann & G Jobim
Identifying city-‐regional structures
in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil
86:9
Figure 03: – Two municipalities
in conurbation of the Metropolitan
Region of Porto Alegre. Global
integration modifications. Source: Rigatti
and Ugalde (2007).
5. The study case
Four out of thirteen municipalities
included in the Metropolitan Region
of Serra Gaúcha -‐ MRSG were
selected for a preliminary approach
and spatial analysis of the
city-‐region: Bento Gonçalves, Carlos
Barbosa, Farroupilha and Garibaldi
(Figure 01) with 107,218;
25,192; 63,635 and 30,689 people
respectively, in 2010.
The agglomeration of cities included
MRSG have a very dynamic
economy with a strong metal-‐mechanics
industrial sector, beverage sector,
with emphasis on production of
wine, and tourism sector.
The cities are settled in the
mountains in sites where declivity
allows urban occupation. In
those sites, the urban grid was
developed in a more regular way
with high connectivity. On the
other parts of the territory
the slope did not allow intensive
occupation and the connectivity
between streets and roads was
low, following a pattern like
strings of segments.
Table 01: Gross Product of
the Agglomeration of municipalities
of MRSG (partial). Source: IBGE
Census 2000 e 2010
1st Sector (Agriculture) 2nd Sector
(Industry) 3rd Setor (Comm. and
Serv.) Total2010 2010 2010 2010
Bento Gonçalves 64.016,00 1.045.859,00 1.570.342,00
2.680.217,00Carlos Barbosa 46.103,00 373.161,00 327.167,00
746.431,00Caxias do Sul 162.265,00 6.099.212,00
7.048.634,00 13.310.111,00Farroupilha 64.510,00 513.287,00
800.642,00 1.378.439,00Flores da Chunha 53.845,00
235.281,00 278.883,00 568.009,00Garibaldi 42.561,00 444.390,00
409.428,00 896.379,00M. Belo Sul 19.059,00 21.174,00
24.570,00 64.803,00Nova Pádua 23.300,00 5.440,00 22.870,00
51.610,00Santa Tereza 10.906,00 3.350,00 11.679,00
25.935,00São Marcos 27.154,00 133.068,00 195.357,00
355.579,00Total AUNE 513.719,00 8.874.222,00 10.689.572,00
20.077.513,00Total RMPA 635.363,00 30.152.327,00
62.855.700,00 93.643.390,00
GROSS PRODUCT (in thousands of
R$)Municipalities
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International Space Syntax Symposium
C Ugalde, C Fujita, C
Bauermann & G Jobim
Identifying city-‐regional structures
in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil
86:10
Firstly, it is necessary to
examine, individually the spatial
distribution of integration in each
municipality, for its specific
structure identification. Then, in a
second moment, the spatial
distribution of integration in the
whole city-‐region must be verified,
so that the degree of autonomy
of each part in relation to
the global system can be
evaluated. Finally, a considerable
set of land use data was
obtained to overlay the
configuration, allowing an overview of
possible relationships between syntactic
measures and basic urban
activities of commerce and services,
industry and housing. For that
purpose, approximately 52,000
geo-‐referenced water consumption measure
points were provided by the
State Sanitation Company (CORSAN-‐RS).
The number of units linked to
each point also permits a
preliminary analysis of activity
densities.
Global space integration of the
agglomeration
Figure 04 shows the spatial
distribution of integration (Rn) in
the global configuration corresponding
to the four municipalities. It
can be easily seen that not
only the cities themselves
concentrate global integration, but
also strings of segments which
correspond to different kinds of
roads within the agglomeration. Four
of them, BR-‐453, BR-‐470,
RS-‐444 and RS-‐313 (Morro do
Macaco Road), call attention due
to their higher values of
integration. The BR-‐453 high degree
of accessibility or integration,
for example, can be explained
by the topologic and geometrical
closeness to the larger cities,
Farroupilha and Bento Gonçalves,
and by its high connection with
the street network of
Farroupilha. Garibaldi and Carlos
Barbosa turned out to be not
so integrated to the whole
system, partially because of their
de-‐centred position in relation to
BR-‐470.
It also can be observed that
there is a larger number
of roads in the northern part
of the configuration. Low
declivities allowed a more intensive
occupation of the territory. Some
of those pre-‐existing roads are
taken as touristic routes like
Caminho de Pedra Road. Special
attention shall be payed to
touristic clusters because those
might be one clue of
globalization. This theme will be
more explored in the ongoing
research.
Figure 04: Angular global
integration of the agglomeration
processed by depthmap (Varoudis,
2012).
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SSS10 Proceedings of the 10th
International Space Syntax Symposium
C Ugalde, C Fujita, C
Bauermann & G Jobim
Identifying city-‐regional structures
in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil
86:11
Local autonomy
Figure 05 also shows the
integration (Rn) distribution of each
municipality up to the limits
of their boundaries and how
it modifies when enclosed in global
configuration. It can be seen
that Carlos Barbosa and Garibaldi
that their internal centralities
loose importance at the global
scale. Part of this space
segregation has to do with
highways crossing street networks or
not, which seems to be the
case of those cities.
Topologically further then Farroupilha
and Bento Gonçalves from the
configuration and less connected to
it, Carlos Barbosa and Garibaldi
seem to loose their autonomy
when embedded in the system as
a whole.
On the other hand, Bento Gonçalves
seems to be not so connected
to highways either, but the
size of the city combined with
the high internal connectivity of
its street grid makes the urban
structure more robust and autonomous
in relation to the whole.
Farroupilha also has this last
characteristic which combined to
the fact that the Highway
BR-‐453 is a real part of
the urban tissue, what reinforces
its importance and autonomy in
the agglomeration.
Figure 05: Angular integration
changes from local to global
scale. Segmented analysis processed
by depthmap (Varoudis, 2012).
Land use and regional structure
The provided 52,000 geo-‐referenced
water consumption measure points
correspond to the three basic land
use categories: residential, commercial
/ services and industrial.
Commonly, residences are spread all
over the cities and the
agglomeration in study is not an
exception. But through a selection
by query in ArcGIS, buildings
with more than one housing
unity had their distribution
plotted, showing correspondence to the
most integrated segments of the
configuration and suggesting that
population density has a tendency
to correlate with accessibility
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SSS10 Proceedings of the 10th
International Space Syntax Symposium
C Ugalde, C Fujita, C
Bauermann & G Jobim
Identifying city-‐regional structures
in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil
86:12
(Figure 06). An important aspect,
is that large and distant
condominiums, which is a
contemporary way of living, were
not detected in the study area.
Figure 06: Accessibility structure
in the agglomeration with dense
residential location (dots in
grey). Geo-‐referenced data processed by
depthmap (Varoudis, 2012) and ArcGIS.
The same procedure was done for
commercial and services land use
and it also can be clearly
seen that, in a general sense,
they tend to be located on
highly accessible streets. The next
steps of the research will be
to identify different types of
commerce and services and try
to correlate with specific
locations and space local and
global properties. (Figure 07).
Figure 07: Accessibility structure
in the agglomeration with dense
residential location (dots in
blue). Geo-‐referenced data processed by
depthmap (Varoudis, 2012) and ArcGIS.
The industrial activity location, in
Figure 08, seems not to follow
a clear pattern of distribution.
It was expected that industries
would tend to be along main
roads and highways, at least
the big ones. However, there
are a few spots representing
water supply for industries on
those public spaces of
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SSS10 Proceedings of the 10th
International Space Syntax Symposium
C Ugalde, C Fujita, C
Bauermann & G Jobim
Identifying city-‐regional structures
in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil
86:13
movement. On one hand, the
hypothesis that more distant
industries don’t use public water
service, but extract water from
the underground, should be
investigated, because this fact will
interfere in the on going
research. On the other hand, the
overall distribution of industries
makes sense considering the fact
that the economy of those
cities is diversified and based
on small enterprises too.
Figure 08: Accessibility structure
in the agglomeration with
industrial location (dots in black
crosses). Geo-‐referenced data processed
by depthmap (Varoudis, 2012) and
ArcGIS.
6. Final considerations
Identifying and delimiting real
metropolitan regions and not simple
agglomeration of cities is a
problem in Brazil. Politicians
representatives of dispersal municipalities
try to approve laws creating
regional entities, when, in most
situations, there are weak
relations among cities, generating
unnecessary costs and dispersion of
efforts. The case of the
Metropolitan Region of Serra Gaúcha
was analyzed by the State
Metropolitan Planning Agency in 2013
under traditional criteria. The
results were negative, it means,
the municipalities should be
maintained as an urban agglomeration
status. Besides a still weak
conurbation process, the indicators
of trips from one city to
another, for working or studying
reasons were insufficient, suggesting
their autonomy.
In the present preliminary analysis
of only four municipalities, it
can be noticed that, under
the spatial point of view,
there will be always a global
structure of a regional system.
The spatial integration of the
whole will depend on the
relative position of the space
unities and their connectivity. Typical
land uses and high densities,
in fact, correlate with
accessibility, as space syntax has
already proved.
The functional integration, faced
new contemporary processes, will be
better investigated for the State
of Rio Grande do Sul,
with focus on MRSG. The supply
of electric energy shall be
a better indicator for the
identification of more dispersal land
uses and data shall be more
disaggregate in order to identify
types of residence, commerce, service
and industry. Special attention shall
be paid to the routes adopted
by suppliers, customers, partners and
the distribution logistics for
industrial and commercial enterprises. This
way, space properties and
characteristics can be better
correlated with eventual new and
different relations among cities not
necessarily conurbated.
For the time being, in spatial
terms, it can be said that
there is a strong relation
between Farroupilha and Bento
Gonçalves, what suggests that municipal
boundaries should be taken only
for administrative matters, since
the global spacial structure
potentially supports commercial, service
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SSS10 Proceedings of the 10th
International Space Syntax Symposium
C Ugalde, C Fujita, C
Bauermann & G Jobim
Identifying city-‐regional structures
in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil
86:14
and industrial uses. Specifically
regarding to BR-‐453, land uses
are only partially regulated by
jurisdiction. However, within the
cities, jurisdiction recognizes
potentialities mostly for service
and commercial uses.
Acknowledgements
Special thanks to Geographers Juliana
da Silva Rodrigues and Julia
Fagundes for support in ArcGIS.
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